Changelog:

2014/04/18

– final art for new character Rose
– final art for shop icons for Grimm and Rose, and for Rose’s scythe

2014/04/15

– all buttons and many other UI elements now glow on mouse over

2014/04/11

– completely overhauled all UI
– added fourth ultra-challenging crystal star to each stage
– weapons, characters, tile sets now visible in demo (but not actually available)
– completely redone shop
– upgradeable weapons!
– game now loads faster and is just a single swf file instead of having to load files from a server

2014/01/20

– new font everywhere
– lots of small bug fixes
– several small changes based on player feedback
– several monsters names and descriptions modified
– fixed bug where if buy potion capacity upgrade then go back to potion shop, says “sold out”
– new animation when tiles change
– new art for HUD in battle
– animated gems!
– fixed bug with jumpy scrolling in book store
– fixed crash if clicked no or yes on a confirmation dialog before finished tweening
– final art for all icons
– new treasure chest art
– new art for title screen buttons
– several UI tweaks
– new loading images
– added several sound effects
– added more loading screen tips
– fixed bug with “jumping”/jumpy tutorials
– player stats now spaced out more, easier to read

2014/01/08

– new tutorials, new look for them, more informative, and help explain the early game to player
– fixed crash if clicked attack button then Grimm immediately after
– gem sacks are now gem piles
– unique gem pile images for each level of that upgrade purchased
– everything in battle now pauses when game paused (including damage text and all animations)
– new sound effects across the entire game
– some new art
– new music
– enemy difficulties tweaked
– adjusted gem reward values and item costs
– popups no longer “bounce” when finished growing into place, was hard on the eyes!
– fixed bug where challenge goal text would go red even if player finished the challenge
– fixed bug with creepy red-eyed Grimm!
– fixed break between bg tiles on iPad
– added more achievements, now have a total of 42! Also adjusted required values of several achievements
– new quests, and adjusted requirements of several quests
– new leaderboard for highest single word damage
– new skill names for enemies
– fixed bug where enemies could heal even if at full health
– adjusted star reward values of all stages
– boss, miniboss, and challenge enemy stage stars now worth more than normal stages
– achievement notifiers now show for longer so player has time to read them
– fixed bug where player weapon went behind enemies instead of in front
– treasure chest reward values adjusted
– now show how many potions player has in shop in description
– added 4 new challenge enemies
– reduced to 23 main stages, 8 challenge enemy stages, and 2 optional challenging stages
– new descriptions and names for several names
– removed some offensive words from the dictionary
– fixed bug with calculations for top/bottom row tiles, corner tiles, were not being calculated correctly
– fixed bug with misaligned stages on map
– new map stage layout
– callout frame now has a slight blue glow so it’s easier to see
– costs of all items adjusted
– 2 new upgrade types, increase chance to dodge enemy attacks, and increase max potion capacity
– new type of potion, “purify”, removes all bad tiles from the board
– tweaked book effect values
– book max level increased from 3 to 5
– several new quest icons
– fixed bug where whirlwind tiles could create letters that were banned in challenge stars with banned letters

2013/12/03

– new achievement icons
– new shopkeeper art
– new enemy hit and bite animations that play over top of Grimm
– several small art tweaks
– UI usability tweaks
– several bug fixes

2013/11/28

– much improved load times – now keeps everything in memory, so assets only need to be loaded on game startup, and on first stage played
– lots of new art, including icons, buttons, books, help icon, and lots of other things!
– UI for selecting treasure chests and in-game merchant tweaked, now looks more appealing/readable
– added more help icons for dynamic help in battle
– several of the early quests are now easier
– Grimm now shown on map beside selected stage
– redesigned UI for selecting stages
– selected stage on map is now moved to the center of the screen always, to avoid being hidden behind other things
– redesigned quests UI
– removed reward popups after battle for stars
– added stars to results after battle, and animate earned star when show results screen
– added “Bacon!” as an in-battle merchant item to restore health
– several efficiency improvements, game now runs smooth almost all of the time (hopefully!)
– fixed bug where player could start with no vowels if very unlucky
– fixed bug where click area for bringing up monster details was incorrect on many monsters
– tons of other small bug fixes

2013/10/24

– added tutorials about quests (shown when first quest is completed) and tile rarities (shown at beginning of stage 2)
– removed tutorial about gems, wasn’t necessary
– fixed fuzzy text on some progress bars (was happening only some of the time, now it never happens)
– rebalanced all costs and rewards
– decreased difficulty
– increased time limit times significantly
– reduced number of each type of upgrade from 6 to 5
– tweaked bonuses from books, they’re more useful now
– max book level reduced from 5 to 3
– books require less xp to level up, encouraging use of different books
– all books now cost 500 gems – previously the prices went up for later books
– further increased damage bonus for longer words
– added 5 new achievements
– tweaked requirements for several achievements and quests
– tweaked score values to be more balanced
– tons of bug fixes

2013/10/17

– word damage increases more quickly for longer/better words
– fixed buggy list scrolling on player stats screen
– no longer earn gems just by spelling words, gem values from enemies increased to compensate
– modified time limits on some time trials to make them fair/possible
– added demo date text on bottom-right of screen
– “NEXT” button on all end of battle popups now below popup instead of above, as per several players’ request!
– fixed bug where sometimes clicking the first letter in a word being spelled would bring up monster info instead of returning letter to the board
– fixed crash bug if tried to purchase a quest completion on the results screen
– fixed bug where popups that “grow” were not growing from the center of the screen
– fixed bug where if defeated by an attack that would trigger a tutorial, would get into a weird state while at results screen

2013/10/16

– added “next stage” button to results screen so don’t have to go back to map every time
– added label on-screen when doing challenges to indicate that a challenge is being attempted (wasn’t clear before)
– facebook button on title screen now goes to correct location
– fixed bug where if game lost focus, video would not refresh/update until clicked back into the game making it seem like it froze
– several performance tweaks

2013/10/04

– first demo

7 Comments

10-10-2013

Marie says:

It is Awesome!! Only have had it 2 days , made the seven levels. Only 4 stars left. Wanting more!!

The technology/framework we’ve created the game in does not currently support Windows Phone. That being said, it’s a platform we’d love to support in the future, but we’ll need to look into what options we have. 🙂

Unfortunately Google does not handle any of the taxes, etc. for any countries. What that means is that it’s up to my company (which is just two people) to figure out how to charge, submit, and handle taxes in each separate country of the world that we want to sell the game in. It’s pretty overwhelming. We need to hire an accountant to help us, but currently don’t have the money for that. It’s definitely something we want to do though, and we’ll do our best to make the game available worldwide on Google Play. 🙂

Just wanted you to know I am a full blooded lover of word games that is all I play except for slots when I’m just playing to kill time and can stop immediately and not be upset that I had to…..lol. Anyhow Bookworm Deluxe is my favorite game and this game has reached its level maybe even passed it cause you offer more brain thinking than Bookworm. Like you said it’s not just about spelling the longest word or even the highest scoring word, it’s about doing it the way you have to in order too defeat the bunnies, like hard level 9, spell words only starting with a vowel, which I’m currently stuck on but positive I will conquer. Thank you for bringing this game to us cause I absolutely love it.